Beatle Harrison predicted big hit

The voices are familiar, and so is the sound of screaming fans.

The British Broadcasting Corp. has retrieved an audio tape of the Beatles' 1963 live appearance on the BBC TV music show "Juke Box Jury," in which they give their opinions on the music of Elvis Presley and the Swinging Blue Jeans, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"The program was not recorded by the BBC, so we are thrilled to have it in the archive," spokeswoman Helen Martin said. "But it's a copy of another recording and it's rather poor quality, so it's unlikely to be broadcast."

Martin said a viewer of the show, which aired from the Empire Theater in the Beatles' home city of Liverpool on Dec. 7, 1963, recorded the performance on a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

He handed it to the BBC after the corporation made a public appeal for old recordings, she said.

In keeping with the show's format, the band formed a celebrity panel that was asked whether it believed new singles by Elvis Presley, the Swinging Blue Jeans and The Chance would be chart hits. Screaming fans can be heard in the background.

Of Presley's "Kiss Me Quick," Paul McCartney said, "I love his voice and I love all the records like 'Blue Suede Shoes,' but I don't like the songs now. 'Kiss Me Quick' -- it sounds like Blackpool (a British coastal resort) on a sunny day."

They also correctly predicted that "Hippy Hippy Shake" by the Swinging Blue Jeans would do well.

"I think it could possibly be a hit -- I know for a fact it's a popular song 'round here," Harrison said.

The 30-minute show was broadcast two days after the Beatles scored their third British No. 1 hit with "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

Altman's newest film opening in LondonRobert Altman's "Gosford Park," starring Dame Maggie Smith, Sir Michael Gambon, Emily Watson and Jeremy Northam, will open the 45th Regus London Film Festival on Nov. 7.

It will be the world premiere of the latest movie from the 76-year-old director, whose films include "M.A.S.H.," "Nashville" and "The Player."

Iain Softley's "K-Pax" will have its European premiere at the festival's closing night on Nov. 22. Kevin Spacey plays a psychiatric patient who believes he's an alien, and Jeff Bridges is the doctor who takes on his case.

This year's London Film Festival will screen some 170 features and nearly 100 short films.

The lineup is especially strong on the latest offerings from Britain and France, while a "Treasures From the Archives" section will include freshly restored prints of such films as Peter Fonda's "The Hired Hand" and Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."

Festival director Adrian Wootton said Martin Sheen and Bruce Willis are expected to attend screenings of "Apocalypse Now Redux" and "Bandits," respectively. Peter Fonda is due in, too, for "The Hired Hand."

Signed Picasso stolen from NYC galleryA signed Picasso drawing was reported stolen from a Manhattan gallery.

Police spokeswoman Cheryl Cox said Wednesday the ink-on-paper drawing was reported missing from the Richard Gray gallery on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side.

Andrew Fabricant, the gallery's director, said he was on the telephone around noon Monday when he heard someone enter the gallery. He said when he turned around about 10 seconds later, he saw a blank space on the wall and noticed that the elevator was in use.

"It happened that fast," he said, adding that he immediately called police.

The 1923 drawing, "Young Nude Man at the Mirror, Playing a Pan Flute, and Child," is worth $320,000, Fabricant said.

He said the drawing would be difficult, if not impossible, to sell because auction houses have been notified of its disappearance and prospective buyers would require extensive documentation of its prior owners.

Fabricant said he believed the thief might have been trying to take advantage of the crisis situation in New York following last week's terrorist attacks.

"It certainly crossed my mind," he said.

Film festival goes on despite attackMore than 100 films were scheduled at the Woodstock Film Festival, which runs Thursday through Sunday.

Organizers said they decided to go forward with the second annual event despite last week's terrorist attacks.

"As a nation and as individuals, we must all try to heal and continue our lives," the festival said in a statement.

The festival will include the U.S. premiere of "Chelsea Walls," the feature directorial debut of Ethan Hawke, and presentation of the Honorary Maverick Award to documentary makers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

It also will feature the New York premieres of "Pinero," the story of Puerto Rican actor-writer Miguel Pinero, starring Benjamin Bratt; "Novocaine," starring Steve Martin; and Dirk Benedict's "Cahoots," starring Keith Carradine.

Las Vegas casinos donating to familiesTwo Las Vegas Strip casino companies are donating $1 million each for the families of police officers and firefighters killed in last week's terrorist attacks on New York City.

"Our hearts go out to every victim of this unspeakable tragedy," Mandalay Resort Group Chairman Bill Richardson said in a Monday statement announcing the donation.

Harrah's Entertainment spokesman Gary Thompson said company employees also will be encouraged to contribute to other relief funds.

The money will be funneled through a Firefighters and Police Rescue Fund.

Last week, MGM Mirage donated $1 million to the American Red Cross relief effort.

Worker's widow sues Columbia PicturesThe wife of a crew worker who died on the set of the upcoming "Spider-Man" movie has sued Columbia Pictures.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed Wednesday in Superior Court seeks unspecified damages. A call to Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, wasn't immediately returned early Thursday.

Tim Holcombe, 45, of Monrovia died March 6 while welding sets for the film when a forklift -- which had been converted to a crane -- toppled onto a construction basket in which he was riding, investigators said. Another worker in the basket was not seriously injured.

Equipment maker Ingersoll-Rand also is named in the lawsuit. Representatives from that company couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

Columbia Pictures was fined nearly $59,000 in August for workplace violations stemming from Holcombe's death.

The lawsuit is the second recent setback for the film. Studio executives pulled a "Spider-Man" trailer from theaters and the Internet after terrorist attacks last week in New York and Washington. The trailer contained a scene in which a helicopter carrying fleeing robbers gets trapped in a giant spider web strung between the World Trade Center towers, which collapsed after a pair of hijacked planes slammed into them.

"Spider-Man," based on the Marvel Comics hero, is scheduled to open in May and will star Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe and Kirsten Dunst.

-- From wire services